Disney pulls out of Bangladesh factories

The Walt Disney Company told licensees and vendors to halt production in "highest-risk countries" like Bangladesh and Pakistan.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The company sent a letter in March to vendors and licensees to transition production out of the "highest-risk countries," like Bangladesh, in order to bolster safety standards in its supply chain.

Disney will also halt production in four other countries: Ecuador, Venezuela, Belarus and Pakistan, by April 2014.

The decision was made before last week's devastating collapse of a factory building in Bangladesh that left more than 400 people dead. It was prompted by the November fire at the Tazreen Fashions Factory in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka that killed 112 people, and another fire in Pakistan that killed 262 garment workers last September.

"After much thought and discussion we felt this was the most responsible way to manage the challenges associated with our supply chain," said Bob Chapek, president of Disney Consumer Products.

Related: Shoppers face tough choices over Bangladesh

While Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) is the first brand to completely halt production in Bangladesh after the tragedies, it's a small chunk of what the company sources. Less than 1% of the factories that Disney sources from are located in Bangladesh. Even less are made in the four other counties, according to Disney spokeswoman Tasia Filippatos.

The company said its decision was based on a report from the World Bank that assesses how countries are governed, using metrics like accountability, corruption and violence, among others. The five countries from which Disney pulled production had the lowest scores on those measures.

Disney said it will continue to source from some countries, like Haiti and Cambodia, that didn't get high marks in the World Bank report, but only with factories that partner with the Better Work program run by the International Labor Organization and the International Finance Corporation. The group works to control health and safety conditions.

The company will consider permitting production in Bangladesh in the future if factories agree to partner with the Better Work program, according to Disney's Filippatos.

Disney isn't the only company snapping into action after the latest tragedy.

Earlier this week, a group of retailers, including H&M, Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) and Gap (GPS, Fortune 500), met with nongovernmental organizations and labor rights advocates in Frankfurt to discuss health and safety issues in the 4,500 garment factories in Bangladesh.

Related: "Shame on you," customers tell retailers

On Monday, a trade association representing stores, the Retail Council of Canada, called an urgent meeting to discuss how to address the situation. Joe Fresh and Wal-Mart confirmed that they were participating in the meeting. The companies haven't said if they are taking any concrete action.

The British retailer Primark on Monday said it will compensate victims who worked for its supplier, by providing long-term aid for children who lost parents, financial aid for those injured and payments to families of the deceased. A spokesman for the company said it has also partnered with a local aid group to dole out emergency food to families.

Other companies like J.C. Penney (JCP, Fortune 500), Benetton, and Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) -- all of which source clothes from Bangladesh -- have reaffirmed their support for worker safety and monitoring conditions in the country.

The corporate reactions come as people are expressing outrage on companies' Facebook (FB) pages over the working conditions that retailers are willing to tolerate in order to sell clothes at cut rate prices.

"Until companies like yours control the working situation and pay decent wages, it will happen again. And again," Linda Bowser Fallis posted on Joe Fresh's Facebook page.

First Published: May 2, 2013: 1:14 PM ET

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LinkedIn slumps on disappointing outlook

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

LinkedIn again beat expectations in its first-quarter earnings report late Thursday, but the company's guidance for the second quarter came in lower than analysts were expecting.

Shares fell a whopping 12% in after-hours trading, after reaching an all-time intraday high above $202 in regular trading on Thursday.

The record high comes after an incredible 73% run-up so far in 2013. When a stock is that hot, any spot of bad news tends to pop the bubble of excitement.

For LinkedIn (LNKD), it was the company's outlook. The business networking site expects revenue for the current quarter to come in between $342 million and $347 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were predicting revenue of around $359 million.

Investors clearly chose to focus on that outlook, rather than LinkedIn's first-quarter earnings. The company earned $52.4 million during the quarter, excluding one-time items, on sales of nearly $325 million. Both figures beat Thomson Reuters estimates.

Facebook (FB), with its 1 billion-plus user base, tends to get most of the social-tech-stock press. But Facebook is heavily reliant on advertising, which made up 85% of its sales last quarter. LinkedIn has three distinct revenue streams, a diversified mixed that appeals to investors.

Related story: Facebook sales jump 38%, with mobile boost

All of those revenue streams were up significantly last quarter, but how important they are to LinkedIn's overall sales shuffled a bit.

Revenue from "talent solutions," which lets companies post jobs and helps recruiters contact potential candidates, totaled $184 million. That's 57% of LinkedIn's total revenue for the quarter, up from 54% from the same period in 2012.

Talent solutions stole a few percentage points from the marketing sector. Revenue from marketing products came in at nearly $75 million, which represents 23% of LinkedIn's total revenue. That's a slight slip from 25% a year ago. Some analysts have expressed concern about how the shift to mobile will affect sites like LinkedIn and Facebook -- smaller screens mean less space on which to put ads.

LinkedIn's third product, paid subscriptions, came in around $67 million. Those "premium subscriptions" represented 20% of total sales last quarter, consistent with the first quarter of 2012.

First Published: May 2, 2013: 5:04 PM ET

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How porn links and Ben Bernanke snuck into Bitcoin's code

The code on the left records a bitcoin transaction from July 2011. Converted into text, it generates a portrait of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Bitcoin, a four-year-old digital currency developed by a hacker who still remains anonymous, is a favorite plaything of libertarians and cryptography geeks. It burst into the mainstream this year when investors took note of its wild price swings. One bitcoin is now worth around $112, down from a record high of $266 last month, but up from $5 a year ago.

At the core of the bitcoin network is a database recording every single transaction.

Bitcoin enthusiasts have long known about a technical loophole that allows people to inject coded messages into the database. The trick is typically used for pranks or harmless notes, but Bitcoin discussion boards lit up on Monday with the news that someone took advantage of it for a nastier purpose: adding encoded links that claim to lead to porn sites, some featuring children. (CNNMoney verified that the links exist in Bitcoin's database, but did not check to see if they actually went to child porn sites.)

A technical analysis posted on BitcoinTalk.org delves into the details. There doesn't seem to be much danger for the casual bitcoin user. The porn links are concealed in hexadecimal code, and a decoder is needed to translate them into English. In other words, you'd really have to be looking for it.

But once a message makes it into the Bitcoin ledger, it can't be removed.

"There are very large ramifications to filtering out transactions, even ones that are obviously data spam," Jeff Garzik, a developer who works on Bitcoin's core software, wrote in a blog post responding to the porn discovery.

People have been sneaking messages into the ledger for years. Bitcoin's creator put a coded note into the very first recorded transaction, and in 2011, a crafty hacker embedded a tribute to a recently deceased friend, along with a rather accurate, pixelated image of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Religious tracts, spam and random pronouncements like "I LIKE TURTLES" are some of the notes that turned up in 2012 file showing some of the encoded text. Last month, someone dropped in a large stash of Wikileaks cables.

But all this monkeying with the ledger is posing a problem for the pioneering currency, just as it's beginning to gain wider attention. Bitcoin advocates have worried for years about what would happen if someone tried to store illegal content in the ledger -- like, say, child porn, which is a U.S. federal crime to possess. That once-hypothetical threat is now real.

The porn: Every bitcoin user interacts with a portion of the currency's database, and many power users run software that stores the entire thing. Legally, bitcoin users who have the part of the ledger with the porn links seem to be in the clear. They are, after all, just words and text links -- not actual child porn images.

The U.S. Justice Department wouldn't comment on this specific case, but an agency spokesman pointed CNNMoney to the exact wording of the law, which states that the issue becomes a crime when a person "knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view" child porn. It doesn't appear that an unsuspecting user with these coded links sitting on their hard drive has much to worry about.

So is this a big deal or not? The Bitcoin community is divided.

Some think the links are being blown way out of proportion. They liken the coded messages in Bitcoin's ledger to graffiti, and say it's inevitable that someone would eventually inject something unsavory.

"All tech can be abused for weird stuff," Dan Kaminsky, the hacker who pulled off the Bernanke stunt in 2011, told CNNMoney.

Others would like Bitcoin's core developers to take action. "This is actually a big issue," one commenter wrote in a discussion thread on Hacker News. "I don't think we should avoid it."

Related story: 'I lost $50,000 in Bitcoin crash'

Bitcoin's backers appear to be taking this seriously.

"It is an awful situation," the developer Garzik told CNNMoney. "The problem goes to the core of digital currency storage."

Because bitcoin transactions are anonymous, it's difficult to trace a malicious transaction back to its source. Theories about why someone would put the porn links in run the gamut. Perhaps it's anti-child porn activists who want the authorities to take more action. Perhaps it's people trying to shut down Bitcoin, or a group hoping to make money off a crash in the currency. It might just be pranksters looking for trouble.

Most of Bitcoin's users don't think it's actual pedophiles trying to distribute their contraband. There are better, more secure ways to store information, and injecting the porn links cost the perpetrator $50 or $60 in transaction fees.

Already, new versions of Bitcoin's core software are being developed that allow historical transactions to eventually be deleted.

"Once people get the idea that it's not a way to force lots of people to store your data forever, interest in it will go away," said Mike Hearn, a Bitcoin developer. "There might be occasional graffitis here or there, but we can tolerate that."

Another way to head off problems like this would be to increase the fees charged by bitcoin transaction processors, since these "data spam" interludes generally require dozens or hundreds of small transactions to complete. Or Bitcoin's network could start weeding out people who are making a rapid series of tiny transactions.

But both these options diminish some of Bitcoin's biggest selling points to begin with: its low transaction fees and lack of central authority.

"The answer is very complex," Garzik wrote in his blog post, "with implications that travel to the heart of Bitcoin's value."

First Published: May 2, 2013: 6:31 PM ET

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Chevy pulls ad offensive to Chinese

GM has pulled this ad that used a song with offensive lyrics.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The ad, which began running on Canadian television on March 4, was originally reworked with a different sound track a week ago. But Wednesday -- after the ad's offensive content was reported in the English language South China Morning Post -- GM (GM, Fortune 500) decided to pull the ad completely. The ad had also appeared on websites for GM's European operations.

The ad used the 1938 song "Oriental Swing" includes the lyrics "Now, in the land of Fu Manchu, The girls all now do the Suzie-Q, Clap their hands in the center of the floor, Saying, 'Ching, ching, chop-suey, swing some more!'"

The song also includes lyrics about Japanese geisha girls and Arab sheiks that could be considered offensive. GM apologized for the use of the song Wednesday.

"GM has stopped airing a commercial for the Chevrolet Trax due to the objectionable lyrics of a song used in the spot's soundtrack," said the company's statement. "We apologize for the use of inappropriate content. We are conducting a full review of our advertising approval process to ensure this does not happen again in the future."

There have been a rash of offensive car ads recently requiring apologies by various automakers.

Just last week, Hyundai pulled an ad that made a joke about a man's suicide attempt using exhaust fumes but being unable to do so because the car he was using emits only water vapor.

In March, GM rival Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) apologized for ad depicting tied up women in the back of one of its cars, even though the ad itself never ran. The ad agency employees who created the artwork were fired as a result of the publicity.

Related: The chunkiest cars on the road

The Trax is a small SUV that GM is selling in many markets around the world, but not in either China or the United States. The car is built on the same platform as the Buick Encore, which was introduced to the U.S. market earlier this year.

China has become one of the most important markets for GM in recent years. It sells more cars in China than it does in the United States.

First Published: May 1, 2013: 3:09 PM ET

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Facebook sales jump 38%, with mobile boost

Click to check out Facebook's important Q1 stats.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Investors are laser-focused on mobile, which Facebook has said is the key to its future success. Mobile ad sales accounted for 30% of Facebook's total ad revenue in the first quarter of the year -- up sharply from the previous two quarters and from essentially zero just a year ago.

Facebook began working ads into its mobile products only several quarters ago, most notably when it released a new Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iOS app in August.

That mobile ad boost has helped increase revenue, but the growth in monthly active users on Facebook's mobile site and apps is slowing. It jumped 54% over the year to 751 million, which is slightly below the fourth quarter's 57% year-over-year jump, and the 61% annual increase in the third quarter.

That growth rate will likely continue to shrink as mobile users come into parity with total users. Facebook reported that overall monthly active users jumped to 1.11 billion in the first quarter, 751 million of whom accessed Facebook on their phones and tablets.

Facebook (FB) shares were essentially flat in after-hours trading following the report.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of time on the post-earnings conference call talking about advertising, and how the company plans to continue integrating ads without alienating users.

"Over the long term, the thing that's going to drive the business is the ads that are very high quality ... things people are interested in," Zuckerberg said.

Starting with ads in users news feeds last year "was a valuable step," he added. "Anywhere someone is getting content from Facebook, the business model is following naturally." Facebook plans to continue that philosophy as it rolls out new ad products.

COO Sheryl Sandberg said she feels "pretty good" about Facebook's ad formats, but she thinks "there's a lot of room to improve our ads" in terms of quality.

Ad sales helped propel the social network's overall revenue to $1.5 billion in the quarter -- a solid performance in what's generally a soft quarter for ad revenue at most companies. Brands typically spend heavily to market to holiday shoppers in the fourth quarter and ease off at the beginning of the year.

Earnings rose 7% over the year to $219 million, despite being crunched by massive expenses.

Costs jumped 60% over the year to $1.08 billion. Facebook executives had warned during last quarter's earnings call that the company expects expenses to rise by about half this year. Facebook is spending cash on both infrastructure and headcount, and it's putting that money to work: In 2013 so far, the company has already released four major new products.

Graph Search and a News Feed revamp came in the first quarter, while the third and fourth products came too late to be included in Wednesday's results.

Earlier this month brought Facebook Home, a custom startup screen for Android smartphones that will eventually include ads. A week later, Facebook announced "Partner Categories," which lets advertisers target specific users based on their past buying history -- even if the purchases happened offline.

Facebook also revealed that photo-sharing app Instagram reached 100 million monthly active users in the first quarter.

Rival social network LinkedIn (LNKD) is set to report its quarterly finances Thursday after the market closes.

First Published: May 1, 2013: 4:48 PM ET

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Shoppers lash out at stores over Bangladesh

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Dozens of consumers took to social networks after more than 400 workers were killed when a garment factory building in Bangladesh collapsed last Wednesday.

The message from shoppers like Judy Caulfield had for retailers: Shame on you.

"Do the people running this company sleep at night knowing that they are partly responsible for the deaths of so many people?" she asked on the Joe Fresh page.

While some wondered how retailers could tolerate such conditions at factories they buy from, others threatened that they would stop shopping at stores connected to the collapse.

"I have a Joe Fresh gift card and was going to go shopping there. Now I'm not so sure," Linda Bowser Fallis posted on Joe Fresh's Facebook (FB)page. "Until companies like yours control the working situation and pay decent wages, it will happen again. And again."

The building that collapsed housed a factory that made goods for Joe Fresh, some of which were destined for J.C. Penney (JCP, Fortune 500) stores, since the brand has a partnership with the department store.

The factories in the collapsed building had, at some point or another, made items for The Children's Place (PLCE), Dress Barn, Benetton and British retailer Primark. One factory, Ether Tex, listed Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) as one of its buyers, though the retailer said it had no authorized production in the building.

Related: Shoppers face tough choices over Bangladesh

People also unleashed their anger at retailers that didn't have any connections to that specific building, but are known to source from factories located in Bangladesh, like H&M.

One H&M shopper posted that he will start shopping there if the retailer stops "using slave labor in [its] clothing production."

Many of the comments pointed out how little people around the world knew about where their clothes come from, and just how much they cared to know.

"Just wanted to ask if you import any of your clothing from Bangladesh...and if so have [you] done anything to fund...safety programs," Jonathan Gottleib posted on the J.C. Penney Facebook page. "I need to know from each corporation before I decide if I want to buy anything from them."

Jackie Lynch, a Benetton shopper posting from Melbourne, asked how many of the retailer's clothing lines come from Bangladesh and if it can reassure customers that its garments are made in safe factories.

The confusion stems from the fact that companies often aren't transparent about how they monitor production overseas.

Many large companies monitor suppliers and have guidelines on health and safety standards, but experts say that the results of these audits aren't made public. That makes it difficult for any consumer who wants to check if a company is actually conducting the audits or terminating relationships with suppliers who don't meet standards.

Joe Fresh, H&M, Benetton and J.C. Penney didn't respond to questions on what they plan to do about their customers speaking out.

First Published: May 1, 2013: 10:20 PM ET

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41% of college grads overqualified for what they do

More than 4 out of 10 recent graduates say they are stuck in jobs that don't required a college degree.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A survey out Tuesday found that 41% of college graduates from the last two years are stuck in jobs that don't require a degree.

Consulting firm Accenture talked to 1,005 students who graduated from college in 2011 and 2012 and haven't returned to graduate school. In addition to those who are underemployed, 11% said they are unemployed, with 7% reporting they haven't had a job since graduating.

The lack of job options in their chosen fields are weighing grads down, as nearly half of the recent graduates believe they would fare better in the job market if they'd pursued a different major.

Related: Earning $221,000 and paying two tuition bills

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they would need additional training in order to start their chosen career, with 42% saying they expect to go to graduate school. That's a sharp change in thinking from those still in school: A separate survey by Accenture found that only 18% of the class of 2013 expects to need graduate school.

It will likely be much higher, as job prospects are grim for the class of 2013. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 7.6%, and recent graduates fare even worse, according to the Labor Department.

Related: Engineering is top-paying college degree

The weak job market will continue to make things difficult for recent graduates, according to Katherine Lavelle, managing director of Accenture's Talent & Organization practice in North America.

"It's logical that if there are more meaningful jobs available, you will have fewer out in the market looking for those jobs," she said.

But she said even when the job market improves, there needs to be better coordination between employers and colleges about what skills new workers need to have.

First Published: April 30, 2013: 3:20 PM ET

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Marissa Mayer extends Yahoo's maternity leave

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Both new mothers and fathers at Yahoo can now take eight weeks of paid parental leave, and the mothers can take an additional eight weeks. What's more, new parents will also receive $500 to buy items like groceries and baby clothes.

It's part of a slate of new benefits "to support the happiness and well-being of Yahoos and their families," the company confirmed via email. NBC Bay Area first reported these changes. Other new perks include gifts for new pets, and eight weeks of unpaid leave each time an employee hits a five-year milestone.

Yahoo didn't confirm its previous maternity leave length, but the new policy is more in line with those of other Silicon Valley tech companies. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Mayer's former employer, offers seven weeks of paid leave for parents who did not give birth, while new mothers can take off between 18 to 22 weeks. Facebook (FB) offers four paid months for both parents and a whopping $4,000 in "baby cash."

Yahoo's parental leave extensions come just two months after Mayer banned telecommuting at Yahoo, setting off a debate about the merits of working from home. Mayer later said the change "was wrongly perceived as an industry narrative," when she felt it was simply the right thing to do for Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) right now.

But as a female CEO and new mother trying to turn around an aging former tech titan, Mayer faces increased scrutiny on every decision she makes -- especially when it relates to juggling family and career.

Mayer revamped the company culture quickly after she took the reins in July 2012, encouraging Yahoo teams to work more quickly and offering Google-esque (GOOG, Fortune 500) perks like free food. Under her watch, Yahoo announced it will return $3 billion to shareholders after selling back some of its stake in Chinese company Alibaba.

Investors cheered Mayer's business moves, but pundits panned some of her personal decisions.

Related story: Bring your baby to work day - every day

Mayer was pregnant when she accepted the Yahoo job, and she gave birth to baby Macallister on September 30. She worked while she was out of the office, and came back to work just two weeks later.

Outraged critics slammed Mayer for setting a bad example for other mothers, and pointed out she has more resources than do most working moms -- including a reported nursery built next to her office.

Mayer has a lot of turnaround work to do at Yahoo, and she seems to be focusing more on those problems than on gender politics and work-life balance issues. But the new parental leave policy should quell some of her critics.

First Published: April 30, 2013: 1:33 PM ET

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Marissa Mayer's first-year pay: $6 million

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

In addition to a salary of close to half a million dollars, Mayer received a $1.1 million cash bonus and $4.3 million in stock, according to regulatory documents filed on Tuesday.

Mayer was named Yahoo's CEO in July 2012, so her pay package worked out to about $1 million a month.

If she sticks around the new job for another four years, she will make a whole lot more: Mayer's compensation package is worth at least $71 million through 2017. It could top $120 million if an extra batch of stock grants that she is eligible for comes through -- or even more if Yahoo's share price continues to rise, since most of the package is paid in stock.

In the nine months since Mayer took the reins, Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) shares have soared by more than 50%.

Related: Marissa Mayer extends Yahoo's maternity leave

Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) was willing to shell out such a huge sum of money in hopes that snagging the former Google exec could turn the company around. It paid past CEOs generously as well: Scott Thompson was promised a first-year pay package of as much as $26 million before he ended up leaving without severance due to a resume scandal.

The company has undergone a major cultural sea change under Mayer. She has offered several well-publicized perks, including free food, free iPhones and extended maternity leave. A decision to scale back telecommuting proved less popular.

Mayer also recently unveiled a new homepage, a redesigned Yahoo Mail and a refreshed Flickr service. All were designed to get Internet consumers' thinking about Yahoo again and increase user engagement.

But none of those changes have yet translated into financial success. Two weeks ago, Yahoo reported lousy first-quarter sales and a downbeat outlook.

First Published: April 30, 2013: 7:21 PM ET

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FAA furlough reprieve: 'No fair!'

Lawmakers effectively canceled the furloughs of FAA air traffic controllers in an effort to end airport delays. Critics say Congress shouldn't pick favorites for reprieve from supposed across-the-board budget cuts.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

But advocates for everyone else directly affected by the so-called sequester are miffed with the selective undoing of what were supposed to be across-the-board cuts.

"We've got to save the traveling public but I ask the question about 5,000 children in Texas that will lose Head Start or the millions of seniors or our military families that will lose the support because we've got the sequester," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, said Friday.

Joseph Beaudoin, a former federal air traffic controller who now heads the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, was glad to see Congress reverse his former colleagues' furloughs. But he is worried about all the other federal government workers who aren't so lucky.

"Last month, Congress took action to ensure that furloughs could be avoided for TSA agents, meat inspectors and border patrol agents. However, hundreds of thousands of federal employees providing services across the United States still face furloughs," Beaudoin said in a statement. "We've had enough of the reactionary legislative response. It is time for Washington to come together to agree to smart, sensible approaches to tackling the budget."

Weary air travelers to get break from furloughs

The liberal activist group MoveOn.org was more scathing, contending the reversal was "solely to appeal to wealthy contributors who fly frequently." It issued an online petition to "demand that any emergency legislation to eliminate airline delays caused by the sequester also restore cuts to Head Start, cancer clinics, housing assistance, food pantries, and unemployment insurance."

Meanwhile, NDD United -- a coalition of 3,200 groups focused on public health, medical research, education and other areas -- sent a letter to Congress before the FAA reprieve was passed. "Damage control is not a sound fiscal policy. We urge you to reject any efforts to pick favorites and instead fix sequestration, once and for all," the letter said.

First Published: April 26, 2013: 5:06 PM ET

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